COMMUNICATIONS AND TOWNS.—Tientsin, situated on the Pei-ho, a little below the place where the river is joined by its principal tributaries, is the great collecting and distributing centre of the Hwang-ho basin and the most important seaport of North China. Owing to the rocky bed in the upper part of its course, the frequent shallows in the lower part, and the rapid flow throughout, the Hwang-ho itself is on the whole of little value as a waterway and is only navigable in places by junks. Accordingly, no great commercial city has grown up near its mouth, and Tientsin, situated on the navigable Pei-ho and serving as the port of Pekin, has become the entrepot of the whole region. Unfortunately its harbour is bad ; only by constant dredging can it be made accessible to ships drawing more than 13 feet or so of water, and for some time each year it is closed by ice. From Tientsin great trading routes pass by way of Pekin to different parts of Asia. One goes north-east by Shanhai kwan, and between the hills of north Chili and the sea, to Mukden in Manchuria ; another runs north-west by the Nankou pass to Kalgan, almost on the edge of the Mongolian plateau, and formerly the great centre of the Russian tea trade. From Kalgan several routes diverge ; one leads across Mongolia by Urga to Kiakhta ; another makes its way round the plateau of Ordos by way of Kweihwacheng (situated in the north of Shensi and a great collecting centre for skins and camel-hair ropes from all parts of Mongolia) to Lanchow in Kansu ; a third goes to Taiyuen, the capital of Shansi, where it meets a more direct route from Pekin by Chengting-fu, and then proceeds by Sian-fu, the capital of Shensi, situated on the Wei, to Lanchow. Lanchow is the point of con vergence of routes from Lhasa and Kashgar ; while from Sian-fu there are ways to Chengtu in Szechwan and Hankow on the Yangtse, the first across the western and the second across the eastern end of the Tsin-ling mountains. From Pekin, the most important route to the south is that which crosses the Hwaiyang-shan, a continuation of the Funiu-shan, on the way to Hankow ; it is followed by the railway which connects these two towns. Two other railways run from Pekin ; one goes by Tientsin and Shan haikwan to Mukden, with a branch to Newchwang, but it is question able whether it will be able to prevent Tientsin losing much of the trade of Manchuria as a result of the development of that province by the Japanese. The line to Kalgan, on the other hand, will
probably increase the trade with Mongolia, more especially when it is linked up with the trans-Siberian railway. A little to the south of Chengting, on the Pekin-Hankow line, a narrow-gauge railway breaks off from the main line and runs to Taiyuen across a very difficult piece of country ; it taps the coal and iron fields of Shansi, and will probably eventually become an important feeder of Tientsin. Another line bringing coal towards Pekin is that which runs from the Pekin Syndicate mines at Chinghuachen by Sinhsiang to Taokow, whence the coal is carried to the capital by the Wei and the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal, one of the great waterways of ancient China, runs from Hangchow, in the province of Chekiang, to Tientsin, a distance of 1,000 miles across the Great Plain ; its northern section is of comparatively little value, as it is badly constructed.
In addition to Tientsin two other ports are worthy of mention Chefoo and Tsingtau. The former is a Chinese port on the north of the Shantung peninsula, while the latter lies on Kiaochow Bay on the south of the peninsula, in the territory leased to Germany in 1898. Tsingtau has made rapid progress under German control within the last few years ; it possesses an excellent harbour and is connected with Tsinan-fu on the Hwang-ho. Hence it has been able to attract much of the trade that formerly went to Chefoo, which is without a good harbour to protect its shipping from the strong northerly gales of winter, and is unconnected by rail with its hinterland. Practically the whole of the important straw braid trade has been diverted from Chefoo to Tsingtau, and it is possible that the latter port may also eventually attract to itself some of the trade of Honan, Shansi, and Shensi. The position of Tsingtau has been considerably strengthened by the completion of the Tientsin Pukow railway which now runs from Tientsin by Tsinan-fu to Pukow on the Yangtse opposite Nanking.